1. Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a network system and a control method thereof, and more particularly, to a network system performing a communication with an apparatus inside a home and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A smart grid has an architecture allowing bidirectional information exchange between energy-related nodes: such as power generation nodes, power transmission nodes, power distribution nodes, and sales nodes. In exchanging information between the energy-related nodes, a Home Area Network (HAN) inside a home accesses a device outside the home through a network regardless of place and time. However, such an access increases the chance that the HAN is attacked by an unauthorized or intended external threat, such as a virus and/or hacking.
In a conventional smart grid network environment, the connection between the HAN and a device outside the home is achieved based on a fixed internet protocol (IP). Accordingly, a dynamic IP connection is regarded as unauthorized traffic needing to be blocked, or has difficulty in establishing a connection.
In addition, even if a connection based on a dynamic IP is established, the connection, which does not employ a fixed IP, cannot use an IP-based access permission policy, and thus services are easily attacked and/or invaded by external forces.
In particular, for the dynamic IP based connection, if a target device—which is to be connected—changes its IP through returning or updating IP, the device making a request has difficulty in obtaining the IP of the target device in real time, thus failing to establish a connection.
In general, a smart grid, which claims to support an open network, has to protect information inside the HAN from an external network, and is also used to block unauthorized traffic. In addition, if a gateway serving as an entry point to the HAN is connected to a device outside the home through a dynamic IP allocation, a communication service is not provided.
According to a conventional smart grid HAN that mainly uses a dynamic IP allocation (when a connection is made from an external open type network to a HAN), a remote terminal experiences difficulty in accessing a gateway inside the home. There is a need for enhancing the efficiency of a connection from a device inside the home to a device outside the home, or vice versa, through a dynamic IP allocation using a dynamic IP.